The Diamond Throne

The Elenium, Book 1

By: David Eddings

Narrated by: Greg Abby

Length: 15 hrs and 8 mins

Publisher's summary

Sparhawk, the Pandion Knight and Queen's Champion, returns from a long spell of exile to find his native land overrun with evil and intrigue, and his young queen grievously ill. Indeed, Ehlana lies magically entombed within a block of crystal, doomed to die unless a cure can be found within a year.

But as Sparhawk and his allies - who include Sephrenia, the ageless sorceress, and Flute, the strange and powerful girl-child - seek to save Ehlana and the land, they discover that the evil is even greater and more pervasive than they had feared.

Listen to another gem in David Edding's Elenium series.

©1989 David Eddings (P)2008 Audible, Inc.

Critic reviews

"[A] graceful, fluid style of storytelling." ( Publishers Weekly)
"[Eddings] draws once more on his particular strengths, combining heroic yet humorous characters with exotic settings and tangled politics to create a fast-moving fantasy that will appeal to his large readership." ( Library Journal)

Good book.

Not a bad book. A little slow for my likings. I don’t think I will listen to the last two books. But was good, just not for me.

great book, okay narrator

Edding's is one of my favorite authors and I really like the entire Elenium trilogy. This narrator is something of a wet blanket, though. At times you'd almost think you were listening to a text-to-talk computer program.

Could have been

Would you recommend this book to a friend? Why or why not?

Probably not. The story line is pretty good, but it was hard listening because of the reader. I think it could have been good, with a good reader.

How did the narrator detract from the book?

The narrators timing, emphasis and inflection were all wrong. I found it so irritating to listen to that I had to stop listening several times. I wouldn't normally bother finishing a book with a reader like this, but the story had potential and then, I had already listened to all of my downloaded books and had to wait for my new credits. I won't be listening to the rest of the series!

amazing book, terrible narrator ...

If you could sum up The Diamond Throne in three words, what would they be?

enjoyable, fun, memorable

Who was your favorite character and why?

sparhawk ... i've always felt an affinity for him growing up as a kid ... i wanted to be a hero just like sparhawk and i think some of that fascination with him has held up over the years ...

How did the narrator detract from the book?

the narrator made the main character, sparhawk--whom i've always assumed was gruff and swarthy--sound like a bad impression of keanu reeves from "point break" ... i kept waiting for sparhawk to whip out a surfboard halfway through the story ...

Did you have an extreme reaction to this book? Did it make you laugh or cry?

sometimes i groaned loudly in dismay when the narrator made one of my favorite characters growing up sound like a braindead & weak surfer dude ...

Any additional comments?

perhaps the narrators should read the book first themselves to get an idea of what type of person certain characters are (at the VERY least the main character) ... the narrator made sparhawk sound weak and unintelligent ... *gameshow buzzer*

Bad Narration

I would probably rate this book higher if the reader didn't suck so badly. His reading style is choppy and voices are strange to say the least. If you get this book, buy it for the story and not the entertainment.

Great story--less than great reading

I've loved reading Eddings stories. The reader of this audio book, however, created distractions by carrying character voice into narrated portions (like "he said..."). Additionally. there was pronunciation that disagreed with the story context. One example was pronouncing the word "ramshorn" as "ram shorn" when the context indicated the word referred to a "ram's horn".

Narrator made it a hard listen

Narrator was terrible. I found myself mocking the narrator instead of listening to the story. I am not sure if this was the entire problem though. I felt like the story progress was slow and didn't keep my interest. I liked the storyline of the Belariad and Malloreon triolgies better.

I do not recommend this audiobook.

The narrator does not, even remotely, come to natural intonation and or what could be considered plausible conversational exchanges. I've heard this audio book from a different narrator and it is a fun little adventure. But listening to this narrator it difficult and unpleasant. It's like listening to someone who is only vague proficient in the language who puts all the stresses in the wrong places.

Old favorite

Read these books (Elenuim) as a young man and loved them. This audio version is great and makes for an easy listen. Lots of good characters surrounds the gruff hero, a knight of a religious order, throughout an epic tale filled with politic intrigue and plenty of bloody battles. The politics and religious jargon never feel as it takes over the adventure or the core story, which is to save a poisoned Queen and with her, the kingdom. Great narration guides you between the many characters and places filled with a deep history. Enjoy!!

Pronunciation issues

Hierarchy. Hierarchical. Hierocracy. These are real words with real pronunciations. And that pronunciation is not “hair-ark” or “her-ark”.

These words show up a bunch in this series and the narrator mispronounces them Every. Single. Time.

In-universe words are also badly pronounced. There is no glossary or dictionary in the books, so obviously there’s no way to know what the “correct” pronunciation is. But dropping entire syllables from names made it very hard for me to follow as someone who initially read the books. For example, “Chyrellos” is pronounced “Crellos”. I ended up going back into the books to figure out what he was talking about!